In my hometown of Yaoshan, you can see the shadow of the prickly pear fruit growing everywhere on the sunny slopes, field ridges, pine forests or bushes. That's where they set up camp. Every late autumn, the leaves that have not yet fallen into frost will fall, and the mountains and fields are covered with red, yellow and light green colors. Follow the path up the slope, and soon you will encounter a thorny branch covered with dark red fruits, standing happily on the roadside looking at you!
The pear fruit is an evergreen vine shrub. In addition to hook-shaped prickles, the small branches are also densely covered with small thorns. The fruit is oval or lanceolate, resembling the earthen jars used to make pickles at home. People in the city like to buy simmering water and drink it, saying that it has the functions of promoting blood circulation and dispersing blood stasis, clearing fire and diuresis. I was a little surprised, saying that this wild fruit is so amazing? There are a lot of them in the mountains in my hometown. However, when I was a child, I didn’t know it had these uses, and I only thought it was a wild fruit.
In late autumn, when you are grazing cattle or collecting firewood in the fields, you will be attracted by its strong fragrance from afar. So, I carefully picked them off one by one, put them on the stone board, rubbed them vigorously back and forth with the soles of my shoes, and rubbed off the fine thorns on the peels. Then I picked them up and rubbed them on my clothes a few times, bit them open, and removed them. The seeds, except for a slight astringency, taste sweet. Perhaps because they are covered with thorns, squirrels rarely visit them. So, when you go into the mountains and fields, you can encounter them everywhere, a pod here, a cluster there. Under the late autumn sunshine, the dark red squirrels hanging on the branches and vines can be seen. The fruit is really like lanterns floating in the night. Because of the trouble, we children seldom touched them. Only some aunts, uncles and sisters-in-law made pliers from two pieces of bamboo. Wearing gloves and carrying baskets, they went to the mountains and picked them one by one. , go home to dry and wait for someone to buy them, and exchange them for the notebooks, pencils, erasers, or some needles, threads, brains, etc. that your children use to study. If no one buys it, use it to make local wine. Anyway, there is no work in the fields in late autumn, so they can regard picking prickly pear fruits as a serious matter and do it seriously. But this is not the case for children. Most mothers are afraid that their children's clothes will be torn by punctures, and in the end the gain outweighs the loss.
Nowadays, no one has to worry about their children’s education. But for those children who are studying, the snacks at the stalls at the school entrance are dazzling, and the wild fruits in the mountains are naturally no longer attractive. I even thought, They probably didn't know it was edible. But there are still some aunts and sisters-in-law, because their husbands like to drink, so every late autumn, they still pick the ripe prickly pear fruits one by one, remove the thorns and dry them, and then put them into carefully sewn bags. Put it in a gauze bag and soak it in home-brewed rice wine. After a month, a jar of fragrant pear wine can be opened. The first person to taste it was naturally her husband. Although he didn't say "good", his mouth made a crisp sound. My wife's tenderness and sweetness, as well as all the good things, are all absorbed into my heart in that crisp sound.
After consulting the information, I learned that the pear fruit is not only rich in citric acid, malic acid, vitamin C, saponins and rich sugars, but the "Hong's Prescription" also said that it has the ability to "strengthen the kidneys" It has the effect of "astringent essence, nourishing the spleen and stopping vaginal discharge", and can be used for kidney deficiency or both spleen and kidney deficiency, spermatorrhea, white turbidity, vaginal discharge in women, etc. Naturally, such wine is only used to entertain distinguished guests, and ordinary guests cannot enjoy it.
In fact, although the pear fruit is covered with thorns and is difficult to pick, its flowers and colors are somewhat eye-catching. In the mountains and fields in late spring, there is the sound of cuckoo. No matter it is sunny and windy, or spring is cold and cold, it is white, tender, and blooming tremblingly. In the soft wind, it is beautiful with the bright red of azaleas, the light pink of peach blossoms, the silvery snow of pear blossoms, and the golden color of cauliflower... The mountains and fields of my hometown are beautifully decorated. Looking at them from a distance, I feel inexplicably fond of them...